HOPATCONG — You may think on a windy day that the safest place is in your home, but for Frederick Dalton, a 75-year-old Hopatcong resident, that wasn’t the case.

In a rare occurrence, Dalton was killed Thursday afternoon when an 80-foot oak tree uprooted from a rocky area and crashed through his two-story home on Maxim Drive, police said.

Deaths from falling trees are uncommon with only a handful happening each year in the United States. From 1995 to 2007, there were 407 deaths in the U.S. from tree failures, according to a Kent State University professor’s study.

The study conducted by Thomas W. Schmidlin in 2008 showed that these types of fatalities occur most often during thunderstorms and high winds, followed by tropical cyclones, tornadoes, and snow and ice.

About 44 percent of the fatalities occur while a person is in a vehicle, followed by 38 percent being outdoors, 9 percent in a mobile home and 9 percent in a frame house, the study showed.

Dalton, who had been sitting in a reclining chair in his upstairs living room, was found by police officers with the tree and roof debris pinning him down, police said.

Officers Nick Maresca and Dave Schultz, Sgt. Joseph Magrini, Lt. Thomas Kmetz, Detective William Sutphen and Detective Sgt. Michael Houtz responded to a report of the tree falling on the house, possibly trapping the homeowner inside. Neighbors described the tree falling as a loud boom.

When the officers arrived, they called to the homeowner but did not get a response.

According to police, Maresca and Magrini used a ladder and crawled through a back upstairs window looking for the homeowner. When they entered the home they found that debris from the roof had collapsed on a kerosene heater in the upstairs living room, causing a fire. Maresca used his patrol car fire extinguisher to put the fire out, police said.

Magrini inhaled the smoke and chemicals from the fire extinguisher and was able to exit the home but became sick and was taken to St. Clare’s Hospital in Dover for treatment. He has since been released from the hospital.

As patrols were looking for the homeowner, they located two dogs that were not harmed. The officers got the dogs out of the house and handed them over to the next-door neighbor.

Patrols then located the victim in a recliner in the upstairs living room with the tree and roof on top of him, police said.

The tree also fell on the house next door, causing some roof damage.

As it was impossible to remove him due to the size of the tree, a tree-cutting crew had to respond to assist with removing Dalton from the home.

A crew from Tree King worked for about three hours to remove the tree, said Denise Gulick, the office manager for the Landing company. The crew started by cutting off smaller pieces of the tree so that it could eventually be pulled out by a crane.

“Given the surrounding area and the tightness, and the fact that it was a huge oak tree, they had to take it out in pieces,” she said. “It was an extremely big tree.”

Gulick recommended that anyone who is concerned about a tree falling near their home should call a tree service company since many give free advise and estimates.

Keith Andreasen, owner of Andreasen Tree Experts in Sparta, agreed that finding a certified tree expert is key. A tree that is not in danger of falling on people or a structure can usually be left alone, but homeowners should be wary of trees that are close to a house on rocky ledges, as was the case in Hopatcong, or trees that appear to be dying or are hollow.

“As unfortunate as it was, that was probably a tree that should have been removed,” Andreasen said about the one in Hopatcong.

He said it is important to know the history of trees on your property and to see if any nearby construction or driveways may have disturbed the roots of a tree.

While being killed by a tree is rare, it happened to two individuals in Sussex County in August 2003.

Kathleen Merando, 42, of Byram, and her 10-year-old daughter Kaylin Merando were killed by a tree while riding as passengers in a car on Route 615 in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area of Walpack.

The driver of the car sustained minor injuries.

In another incident in December 2010, Thomas Murphy 62, of West Milford, was killed by a tree that fell on his car on Macopin Road in West Milford.

His wife, who was also in the car, sustained injuries.

An Andover Borough councilman, Douglas Mooney, 53, was killed in November 2011 when a tree crushed him while he was cutting it in his back yard.

The tree in Hopatcong likely became compromised by winds Wednesday and Thursday. Wind gusts Thursday were 30 to 35 mph at about 3 p.m. The National Weather Service recorded a gust of 41 mph in Hackettstown on Thursday afternoon.

“These winds were wicked that night,” Gulick said. “That was the difference.”

Jane O’Conner, a neighbor on Maxim Drive, said that Dalton was a “nice guy,” but that she did not have much interaction with him. She said she was more friendly with Dalton’s wife, Joanne, who was not at home at the time of the incident.

She said she first heard that something happened when the wife called her to see if she knew what was going on. The wife then called her back later to tell her that Dalton had passed away.

“I never really saw him leave the house, but the wife was very good to me. She would come and help me with some things around the house and pick up my mail,” O’Conner said.